Just wait until next weekend, No Met south of Horrible on the Hill, AND
NO CHILTERN AT ALL (sunday only for the next few weeks), I think they're
doing an Aylesbury to Amersham shunt though.

Matt Wheeler wrote:

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

CharlesPottins wrote:

There were no Metropolitan Lines running south of Harrow on the
Hill again this
weekend, due to pre-planned engineering work. Ok, fair enough. The
Chiltern
Line into Marylebone offers a nice fast one-stop service.
But once again, there seemed to be no extra carriage to take the
extra
passengers on this. Last time this happened was just at the start
of the sales,
Wednesday 29 December, the platform was packed, and hearing the
announcement
that the Chiltern train was already too crowded before it reached
Harrow, I
made a quick change of plans and hopped on the empty Amersham train
(leaving
from the same platform) just as its doors closed. I'm OK, I've got
my Freedom
Pass, but obviously one can't always be so flexible , and for
elderly or
disabled people and those travelling with youngsters, standing in a
packed
carriage all the way is quite a hardship, even if they manage to
get on, and
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X-Admin:
From: (CharlesPottins)
Newsgroups: uk.transport.london
Date: 16 Jan 2005 19:21:56 GMT
Organization: AOL, http://www.aol.co.uk
Subject: Thabks to Chiltern - but how about extra carriages?
Message-ID:
Xref: uni-berlin.de uk.transport.london:137759

There were no Metropolitan Lines running south of Harrow on the
Hill again this
weekend, due to pre-planned engineering work. Ok, fair enough. The
Chiltern
Line into Marylebone offers a nice fast one-stop service.
But once again, there seemed to be no extra carriage to take the
extra
passengers on this. Last time this happened was just at the start
of the sales,
Wednesday 29 December, the platform was packed, and hearing the
announcement
that the Chiltern train was already too crowded before it reached
Harrow, I
made a quick change of plans and hopped on the empty Amersham train
(leaving
from the same platform) just as its doors closed. I'm OK, I've got
my Freedom
Pass, but obviously one can't always be so flexible , and for
elderly or
disabled people and those travelling with youngsters, standing in a
packed
carriage all the way is quite a hardship, even if they manage to
get on, and
even though it is a mercifully short journey, being one-stop.
Would it be beyond the resources of TfL and Chiltern between them
to arrange to
have a longer train on these days when the extra capacity is
needed? There is
plenty of platform length to spare.

I guess it also partly depends on demand on the Birmingham services
(much higher when there are WCML engineering works) and on platform
space at Marylebone rather than Harrow, as at the former they tend
to occupy platforms with more than one train - although that may
just be a weekday practice.



Other considerations include there being a limit on 5 carriage trains
for Chiltern on the Aylesbury - London via Amersham route, due, I
believe, to the platform length at Rickmansworth. And, considering
they only have 11 three car 165's, its possible there will be a few 4
car units as well, not forgetting, as has been mentioned, needing to
have suitable capacity on the Birmingham route too. Plus, as a
weekend, its likely some stock would be undergoing maintenance, and 2
or 3 of the 165s away for refurbishment.